Does China Have Feet of Clay?

No one knows what China’s future holds, and there is a long history of faulty predictions of systemic collapse or stagnation. Neither outcome is likely, though the country is facing several challenges that are far more serious than many observers seem to think.

CAMBRIDGE – Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to be on a roll. He has sent a rocket to the dark side of the moon, built artificial islands on contested reefs in the South China Sea, and recently enticed Italy to break ranks with its European partners and sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s unilateralist posture has reduced America’s soft power and influence.

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China’s economic performance over the past four decades has been truly impressive. It is now the main trading partner for more than a hundred countries compared to about half that number for the United States. Its economic growth has slowed, but its official 6% annual rate is more than twice the American rate. Conventional wisdom projects that China’s economy will surpass that of the US in size in the coming decade.

Perhaps. But it is also possible that Xi has feet of clay.

No one knows what China’s future holds, and there is a long history of faulty predictions of systemic collapse or stagnation. While I don’t think either is likely, the conventional wisdom exaggerates China’s strengths. Westerners see the divisions and polarization in their democracies, but China’s successful efforts to conceal its problems cannot make them go away. Sinologists who know much more than I do describe at least five major long-term problems confronting China.

First, there is the country’s unfavorable demographic profile. China’s labor force peaked in 2015, and it has passed the point of easy gains from urbanization. The population is aging, and China will face major rising health costs for which it is poorly prepared. This will impose a significant burden on the economy and exacerbate growing inequality.

Second, China needs to change its economic model. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping wisely switched China from Maoist autarky to the East Asian export-led growth model successfully pioneered by Japan and Taiwan. Today, however, China has outgrown the model and the tolerance of foreign governments that made it possible. For example, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is focusing on the lack of reciprocity, subsidies to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and coerced intellectual property transfer that have allowed China to tilt the playing field in its favor. Europeans are also complaining about these issues. Moreover, China’s intellectual property policies and rule-of-law deficiencies are discouraging foreign investment and costing it the international political support such investment often brings. And China’s high rates of government investment and subsidies to SOEs disguise inefficiency in the allocation of capital.

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Third, while China for more than three decades picked the low-hanging fruit of relatively easy reforms, the changes it needs now are much more difficult to introduce: an independent judiciary, rationalization of SOEs, and liberalization or elimination of the hukou system of residential registration, which limits mobility and fuels inequality. Moreover, Deng’s political reforms to separate the party and the state have been reversed by Xi.

That brings us to the fourth problem. Ironically, China has become a victim of its success. The Leninist model imposed by Mao in 1949 fit well with Chinese imperial tradition, but rapid economic development has changed China and its political needs. China has become an urban middle-class society, but its ruling elites remain trapped in circular political reasoning. They believe that only the Communist Party can save China and thus that any reforms must strengthen the Party’s monopoly on power.

But this is exactly what China does not need. Deep structural reforms that can move China away from reliance on high levels of government investment and SOEs are opposed by Party elites who derive tremendous wealth from the existing system. Xi’s anti-corruption campaign can’t overcome this resistance; instead, it is merely discouraging initiative. On a recent visit to Beijing, a Chinese economist told me that Xi’s campaign cost China 1% of GDP per year. A Chinese businessman told me real growth was less than half the official figure. Perhaps this can be countered by the private sector’s dynamism, but even there, fear of losing of control is increasing the Party’s role.

Finally, there is China’s soft-power deficit. Xi has proclaimed a “Chinese Dream” of a return to global greatness. As economic growth slows and social problems increase, the Party’s legitimacy will increasingly rest on such nationalist appeals. Over the past decade, China has spent billions of dollars to increase its attractiveness to other countries, but international public opinion polls show that China has not gained a good return on its investment. Repressing troublesome ethnic minorities, jailing human-rights lawyers, creating a surveillance state, and alienating creative members of civil society such as the renowned artist Ai Weiwei undercut China’s attraction in Europe, Australia, and the US.

Such policies may not hurt China’s reputation in some authoritarian states, but modern authoritarianism is not ideologically based the way communism was. Decades ago, young revolutionaries around the world were inspired by Mao’s teachings. Today, although “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has been enshrined in the Party constitution, few young people in other countries are carrying that banner.

China is a country with great strengths, but also important weaknesses. American strategy should avoid exaggerating either. China will increase in importance, and the US-China relationship will be a cooperative rivalry. We must not forget either part of that description. No country, including China, is likely to surpass the US in overall power in the next decade or two, but the US will have to learn to share power as China and others gain strength. By maintaining its international alliances and domestic institutions, America will have a comparative advantage.

China is already a much larger economy than the US. It consumes ten times as much steel and cement and its ports are ten times as busy. The GDP and ppp methodologies are not picking this up. The first four points by Prof Nye are trivial - only the political one has any merit and this fails to acknowledge that the Chinese see everything through the prism of dynasties which last for centuries.

China's one-child policy was the boldest and most successful social engineering effort of the modern age. Western economists generally can't get past "more is better". The reality is for a generation China required fewer roads, schools, etc., and consumed less food, fuel, and raw materials than would otherwise have been the case. What they did build was higher quality than it would have been and more completely covered the needs of the people. If Western economic models, theories, and philosophies cannot set up the math to arrive at the observed outcomes they are worthless. A few more hints ... South Korea is similar to China in terms of a lowered rate of population growth. When you have modeled China correctly, you can give your students South Korea as a homework problem. Predictions of China's demographic-driven doom are just a reflex by our economists. The reality is the coming increase in robot "workers" (or any similar automation) will mute the supposed shortfall in youthful workers. In fact advanced economies which accelerate population growth (by birth or immigration) in the face of the next wave of automation will be creating a large "reserve army of the unemployed" and inviting social dislocation and upheaval. We -- the US -- need to get away from the more is better folks.

Good point. There are lots of things to criticize about China, but the "Western" media seems to think that the country has never done anything right. The other time China did something that benefited not only itself but the rest of the world was in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, when China was the only country to respond with an adequate stimulus plan. I am sure that without that, the recession would have been much worse for the whole world. But you never see any acknowledgement of this in the "West". Not even by economists who understand that such stimulus is the best way to fight a recession.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who's the fairest of them all?This author and many other Western authors never mentioned the descent of USA and its allies (collectively known as the Western gangster) losing support and credibility worldwide because they attack other countries with make up reason (think Afghanistan), nurture mercenaries to topple governments for resources gain such as Al Qaeda and later IS, commit war crimes and more. Even though the English media is controlled by the Western gangster, the world has come to see their treachery and lies and nobody believes their war cries anymore.Only until the Western gangsters learn to play fair will they regain respect!

Ms. Bull: Wow! If you look at any US Embassy gates abroad, you will notice that people line up in long lines for a visa. Why.? Every refugee would die to get entry to USA to live even though they know US is not an Utopia. Why? Look at tens of thousands of refugees from S.America and Muslim countries!

China has a perfect soft power - it's money!The largest market, technology, infrastructure facilities, investment reserves, and the incredible business mobility of the Chinese — all of this already bites and chews on Western propaganda, in a world of which we all used to live.

About 5 years ago I was working with an Asian colleague experienced in China who, to my surprise, since I thought he was a Sinophile, said: "When you go around the world and ask people 'What does the USA stand for?' they will talk about democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, rule of law, etc. They may not practice it themselves, or think that the US does so either, but they know what that country stands for. What do people think of when asked what China stands for?" Democracy? Human rights? Rule of law? Opposition to bribery and corruption? Respect for other countries, especially weaker ones?

Recently I heard a former Australian defence minister say that he thought President Xi has abandoned two basic tenets that Deng Xiaoping laid down: constitutionality and the rule of law. Deng thought these would enable the attraction of foreign investment and trade that were key to China's economic success.

Well, Deng didn't stick to the rule of law when it came to Tiananmen, and some people are becoming concerned about President Trump's commitment to the same tenets, but I have more confidence in America's capacity to reverse such trends than China's. China's method of correcting wrong courses over many centuries has been revolution...

Bullshit. China is not India. It is India that bullies other countries, even annexing one. I am talking about Sikkim. The reason India is resented by all its smaller countries is because of bullying by India because India modelled itself after the British Raj. China never have this kind of imperial complex like the Raj or India.

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I am surprised why the moderators censored Wall’s comment! Was it inflammatory, sexist, anti- religious hateful....? Readers should read it first and decide. Moderators should warn the commentator first. Just a suggestion.

This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.

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China’s economic success has been based on an open market for goods, contrasted with controlled production factors (labor, land, capital, etc.). Growth has been created by massive state-led investments, but that has left an indebted, risk-filled economy, To rebalance the economy, the state embarked on a campaign to move toward marketizing the production factors. But the reform campaign did not pan out.

In promoting market reform, the state often faces a dilemma — should it choose stability or reform? The state consistently has chosen the former. This bodes ill for China's future development. It is imprisoned in the past.

What has happened is that after a market is established and operational, the state pulls out of the market only to find a surge of malpractices that destabilize market orders. When the state weighs back in, market actors lose their vitality and start speculating on policy loopholes or acquiring subsidies. Market selection and price signals are largely ineffective. This pattern is widespread across various industries undergoing the dual-track transition, including electricity, healthcare, and more.

Incomplete market reform is a symptom of conflicting goals between improving the economic system and political reality. Market reform is more of a means to achieve political and social stability rather than an end in itself. With institutional constraints, China often faces catch-22 situations in market empowerment. State control and protection distort resource allocation and prevent the market from establishing independent operational rules; efforts to redress these problems destabilize existing economic order, and government intervention is restored to smooth out the turbulence.

The long-term solution of thorough institutional reform is far from the horizon, given the persistent vicious cycle of failed market regulatory autonomy and ensuing government intervention.

Project syndicate is USA media platform and it will condem anything China does . Because of it China's poltical believes . . Well excuse me but there many different poltical systems in this world some are very bad and some believe they are the best Yes and China is the worst one on the world if ask a rich USA person..

Westerners could care less about the electric car. What Westerners care about is the Communist Chinese dictatorship. Xi's dictatorship, like those of Mao and Stalin, stinks, with its hurtful control of the people of Communist China and its foreign violence like, for example, taking over peaceful Tibet and its continual attempts at strong-arming democratic Taiwan. Unfortunately, the Communist Chinese people have been habituated to dictatorships for 4000 years. With luck, one day they will look beyond the Xi-imposed walls and cameras, will awaken, revolt, and the monolithic, yes-sir Communist Party with disappear. The world has seen the devastation to humanity of Mao, Stalin, Hitler and the like, and is seeing it under Xi. The West and its allies must stop being nice to Communist China and start being hard, very hard.

After reading the above article, I can't but draw the conclusion that rather than China, it is Professor Nye that has feet of clay. While all of the five points mentioned above are worthy of discussion, Professor Nye's treatment of them is - to my mind at least - extremely one-sided and not infrequently self-contradictory. Take for example, the third point, which claims that China has hitherto plucked «low-hanging fruit» ; if, indeed, that fruit was so low-hanging, why then have other developing countries found it so difficult to emulate China's rapid economic progress ? Perhaps the fruit was not quite so low-hanging after all, and that plucking it rather required quite a bit of stretching on the part of the Chinese authorities and not least, the Chinese people as a whole ? Several of the changes Professor Nye advocates above, such as rationalisation of SOEs (which seem to be the bugbear of commentators on China in North America and Europe) and liberalisation of the hukou system are, as a matter of fact in progress ; strange that Professor Nye nowhere finds it necessary to mention these facts...

Professor Nye's expertise is not in the field of economics, and his view of China seems to be strongly coloured by his contacts with opponents of the current order, without being balanced by contact with its supporters. While this lack of balance may facilitate polemics, it hardly promotes understanding....

Among the low hanging fruit was the greed of US capitalism and Wall Street that finances it. But Professor Nye's real problem is that he prefers to see the world through the lens he knows best - his own. He is scared that his peculiar doctrinal views concerning the power of "soft power" is so easily refuted by the experience of China.

China's 6% growth, remarkable as it is, is still stall speed for such an overburdened economy . China's already heavy corporate debt and its total debt/GDP above 120% looks like its mirroring USA's financial strategy for keeping growth alive. China's Renminbi already in the SDR formula means it can pay for foreign purchases in domestic currency but there is a limit to it all. Its state banks strive to buy time for Chinese corporations while they catch up to standards, This, and an unbalanced population age and sex pyramid structure means trouble. Neither US nor Europe should gloat at this, because imbalances in China mean negative spillover effects on the US and a world economy , dependent on China's investment, purchases of goods and services abroad, and most important, of US treasuries as still the American fiscal deficit hasn't showed signs of abating!

RE:..."US will have to learn to share power as China and others gain strength."...The US will have to learn to accept the fact of it's significant loss of power while China and others dominate International Business Supply Chains with the effective depletion of "consumer ability to demand goods" and obtain sustainable labor positions especially in the US.

Most of US citizens can only communicate in one language to varying degrees of competency, which is English. As English speakers and writers lose access to databases and information sourced in English, especially at incrementally significant cost increases, Mandarin Chinese will become the new international language of the masses, at the total detriment of English-only speakers, readers, and writers.

Joe Nye is out of his depth on China. He says that China is 'weak' because it appears to lack some of the things that are believed to have contributed to America's 'greatness'. He goes on to shamelessly prescribe to the Chinese the very things that are failing the US empire one day at a time. His pretension and ignorance demonstrated in this article are truly contemptible. It also illustrates the perpetual inability and unwillingness to understand China on its own terms and the assumption that all else must model themselves after the failing US empire to become great. When repeated over and over among American 'intellectuals', they mislead the public and misdirect foreign policy.

Well said. I can give you one concrete example of understanding China in its own terms. And that is the allegations of the so called surveillance state. This 'big brother' phobia is a very distinctly Western phenomenon and does not have an equivalent in Chinese culture, and perhaps also in other cultures such as Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia...etc. Chinese citizens actually feel safer by having cameras in public spaces. So just because something is true in the West doesn't mean it is true every where.

And just to give you another example: scholarly research studies (by both Chinese and Western scientists) have shown that well over 80% of the Chinese population support the Social Credit System, which has been demonized and portrayed in western media as China's surveillance state, or turning cities into prison, etc... In fact, the studies indicate that the more educated, the higher the support (90%+ of those with Bachelor's degree and higher support the social credit system).

Blah blah blah. All he says is that: look, here's why China looks 'weak' compared to what we believe has been good for America (in fact having been failing America). Peprfectual inability to see China on its own terms. Fundamentally misleading and at fault for misdirecting foreign policy. Joe Nye is so out of his depth on China but keeps pretending to be an intelligent voice.

Joseph S. Nye says: “No one knows what China’s future holds.” Reading his commentary, one raises the question how long the current form of governance will last. For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it is all about political survival. It explains why the leadership and its apparatchik are desperate to preserve power, ruling with an iron grip on every aspect of the society. The CCP believes it is its leadership’s duty to determine what is in the best interest of the Chinese people. The author warns against any doom prophecy, because “there is a long history of faulty predictions of systemic collapse or stagnation.” For the time being, “neither outcome is likely,” and the CCP looks forward to marking its 100th anniversary in 2021. There are no signs of regime change looming on the horizon, contrary to numerous forecasts of the CCP's demise in the past. However, China “is facing several challenges that are far more serious than many observers seem to think.” The People’s Republic will celebrate its centenary in 2049. Countries like Japan, the US, Germany, or Britain, do not worry much about the future of their political system, because they will most likely maintain the status quo in the decades to come, even if Britain would become a republic. But with China, any thought about its future is accompanied by apprehension. Due to its size, any chaos following a regime change would have destabilising effects on the rest of the world. The author highlights “at least five major long-term problems confronting China.” The country has been grappling with low birth rates and an aging population, despite abolishing its one-child policy. It will be ill-prepared for the rising health costs, which will pose a huge burden on the economy. For decades, leaders had been complacent, reluctant to oversee judicial reforms that address inequalities and grievances. Discrimination against migrant workers in urban areas, land grab and resentment against corrupt officials could spark social unrest. Far from instituting further market reforms, Xi Jinping is intensifying efforts to entrench China’s hybrid model of state capitalism, in which politics and economics are inseparable. Strong government intervention had helped create a debt-fueled economy and boost export, thanks to subsidies to state-owned companies that can beat its overseas rivals with lower prices.The monolithic CCP seeks to “strengthen the Party’s monopoly on power;” while failing to adapt to the political reality on the ground – the rise of a burgeoning urban middle-class. With rising incomes and living standards, the young and educated demand reforms: democratisation, political pluralism etc. “As economic growth slows and social problems increase,” the Party will resort to nationalist rhetoric in order to distract people from their real problems.China has an image problem abroad, due to its crackdown on activists and dissidents, its mass surveillance, and detention of ethnic minorities. Authoritarian regimes are not concerned about China’s human-rights record. Yet Beijing does care about its global image – it has been spending billions on burnishing it. But it has not been a “good return on its investment,” as Beijing has failed to “increase its attractiveness to other countries.” The author has not mentioned environmental concerns. China is grappling with the rising number of sources of pollution in the country, from 5,9m in 2010 to 9m today. His conclusion is that “China is a country with great strengths, but also important weaknesses,” and that the US “should avoid exaggerating either.”There is no way to stop China from rising, and “the US-China relationship will be a cooperative rivalry.” He also points out: “No country, including China, is likely to surpass the US in overall power in the next decade or two, but the US will have to learn to share power as China and others gain strength.” He urges the US to maintain its “international alliances and domestic institutions.” It will have “a comparative advantage,” if it has international backing in its foreign policies. A message that Trump will hardly heed.

"Repressing troublesome ethnic minorities (ie. the Blacks, the Hispanics, the "Indian" nations), jailing human-rights lawyers (ie. Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning), creating a surveillance state (ie. Facebook, Google), and alienating creative members of civil society (ie. neoliberalism) ...". Is this a description of USA? For I fail to see otherwise. He had to had USA in mind.

Ronald P. Doore (1925~2018) was a British sociologist with superbly good knowledge of other areas like anthropology and economics. One of his specialities was on Japan. (He had visited one of my wife's distant relatives, as I knew after I got married, for researches on the postwar land reform in Japan.)

He said, as I hope as a warning and not as prediction, "China will surpass the United States in a not distant future and be a dominant power in East Asia. The United States will be expelled out of the Western Pacific." His reasons were:China will go on growing at a higher rate than the United States: China will maintain its good tax-collecting performance than the US: China is far more strongly willed and determined to enhance national prestige: China has far more human resources, saying that since perhaps the IQ distribution is the same its population is ten times bigger, say, than the Japanese. How many times than the American population?(He said these in a Japanese book that dealt with hypertrophied financial businesses or rent-seeking of the US. He lamented it, so I guess he had it in mind when he spoke about China's tax-collection. American administrations one after another have made tax-reductions for the one percent their principal concern.)

I agree to Prof, Nye's brief but superb analysis. But if I may dare a comment, China has come along rather very well historically with millions or billions of masses left and unattended in extreme poverty and under extreme oppression.The Chinese middle-class has been supporters of the state or dynasties. They, the middle-class, have been coldly and cruelly indifferent like the power holders at the top to the miserable lives of millions of masses.

Not sure that his premise of China collecting taxes is correct. The US, has among the highest rates of voluntary compliance with our tax code in the entire world. PS, I know it is a trope to say there is an obsession to drop taxes on the rich...but far less well known is that the great majority of income taxes are collected from the top 10% and roughly 50% of the people pay ZERO income taxes...making ANY tax reduction efforts (to stimulate the economy or whatever) by definition "assisting" the upper classes.I too believe total economic output (GNP) of China will surpass that of the USA in 10-20 years...however GNP per capita is highly unlikely to surpass the USA. We have, for example slowed economic growth deliberately by enforcing environmental laws...China has just started doing so...and the expensive part of remediating past pollutionsites hasnt really begun

Yoshi Moriyama: Confucian philosophy both in ancient China as well in today's Communist rule , despite its many successes , singularly is deficient in acts and qualities of - compassion, forgiveness and acts of mercy towards its own citizens or people in occupied territories.

I understand Confucianism was distorted in the Han Dynasty to slavishly serve the empire. We happened to have read C. P. Fitzgerald/China: A Short Cultural History. Fitzgerald said, "The successors of Liu Pang (劉邦) not only repealed the proscription of the (Confuician) books, but bestowed the imperial patronage on the followers of Confucius....By this clever distortion of the ancient feudal ideal the Han Emperors made the doctrine of Confucius the strongest support of that centralised autocratic monarchy...." Edwin O. Reischauer said to the same effect that the incorporation of Confucian precepts into the Legalist state, though at variance with the original Confucian philosophy, helps explain the superior lasting power of the Chinese imperial system over all other empires. As a result men of education became supporters rather than opponents of the state (East Asia: Tradition and Transformation).

Prof. June Teufel Dreyer says the benign emperor was a myth (China's Tianxia: Do All Under Heaven Need One Arbiter?/YaleGlobal Online) . It is a short essay but full of ideas.

Yoshi: "... We happened to have read C. P. Fitzgerald/China: A Short Cultural History. Fitzgerald said,...." I have read ,long time ago, that book printed under a different name! Pretty insightful. Thank you.The other link from YaleGlobal also gives lots of new ideas. Thanks again.

"Confucian philosophy both in ancient China as well in today's Communist rule , despite its many successes , singularly is deficient in acts and qualities of - compassion, forgiveness and acts of mercy towards its own citizens or people in occupied territories."

This is hilarious, said by a person from a Caste culture. And what occupied territories? You mean South Tibet (so called Arunachal Pradesh)? India invaded and annexed South Tibet in 1951, four years after the British Raj has already left. This is important because India cannot use the excuse that it is entitled to whatever land grab the British Raj has acquired when it was ruling the subcontinent. South Tibet includes Tawang, birthplace of the Sixth Dalai Lama and home to a four hundred years old Tibetan monastery. Today South Tibet is restless and India knows it. This is the reason AFSPA is imposed on South Tibet. AFSPA is imposed on area India deemed 'disturbed', such as South Tibet and Kashmir.

"while China for more than three decades picked the low-hanging fruit of relatively easy reforms, the changes it needs now are much more difficult to introduce".

Dr Nye then lists the 'reforms' China needs–all of which have made America the failed state it is today. Overall, he shows breathtaking ignorance of how China works; it seems he gets his information from Fox News.

In the multi-thousand year history of China, all of "Communism" is merely the tiniest blip. Although it could hardly go back to Emperors ruling from golden thrones, it seems curious to me that it clings to "classic, Leninist Communism" when the country that was Lenin's birthplace abandoned that same system decades ago.

I believe that China has already out-grown Communism – which proved itself unable to meet the diverse needs of the USSR, and which certainly cannot serve the even more diverse needs of China. There are already voices in the country which have called for reform and whose voices were cruelly crushed out, but perhaps China should solicit and now listen to those voices. These voices may well be where the nation's future prosperity – and even, survival – actually lies.

There is a sixth limitation on China's overall development in the 21st Century, one that may equal or exceed the negative impacts of China's demographic trends. This is the impact of global warming on China. With the rise of ocean levels (along with loss of adjacent grassland areas), major metropolitan areas along the eastern seaboard and the Pearl River delta will likely experience episodic but serious problems in production of goods and services, transportation, and community living conditions. Moreover, changes in rainfall patterns across China may exacerbate problems of drinking water availability, distribution and shortages -- especially in the metropolitan areas. For China's agricultural areas, chemical pollutants throughout a significant portion of the farming regions also may become more difficult to mitigate. While China has initiated policies to address some of the issues, obtaining effective cooperation from the many provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and administratiive regions will be problematic.

Interesting point. I suspect all countries will have similar issues...although China may have it worse than the USA or countries in Europe because their supply of clean water is far less than these countries. Having said that I was quite impressed when I visited with their water diversion programs based on massive dams in tributaries of the Yangtse...but still not enough to maintain agricultural needs for its population

"Conventional wisdom projects that China’s economy will surpass that of the US in size in the coming decade."

China passed the USA in total GDP back in 2014. Check if the IMF WEO database for the details. The Chinese economy is now considerably larger than the economy of the USA.

China has 10X the population of Japan and 4X+ the population of the US. If China attains 50% of US per-capita GDP, China’s economy will be two times (+) larger than the US. No Chinese country (treating Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as countries) has failed to achieve much more than 50% of US per-capita GDP. The actual numbers are Singapore (153%), Hong Kong (101%), Macau (165%), and Taiwan (84%).

To be specific China’s economy has already passed the U.S. by many measures. By some metrics (steel production (10X), coal production (5X), cement production (30X)) China dwarfs the US.

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